the underlying structure of continuous change

The Underlying Structureof Continuous Change

SUMMER 2006 VOL.47 NO.4

REPRINT NUMBER 47412

Thomas B. Lawrence, Bruno Dyck, Sally Maitlis and Michael K. Mauws

The Underlying Structure ofContinuous Change

he HIV/AIDS epidemic created a new context for the pharmaceutical industry

unlike any it had ever encountered. This was not a discrete shock to which the

industry could simply adjust through a planned change program, but rather a whole new

environment demanding novel and unfamiliar ways of operating. For one thing, the

drug companies had to find different ways of collaborating with patients,1 particularly

those within the gay community, which had become increasingly politicized, organized

and skeptical of the medical establishment. Adapting to such new realities required more

than just implementing a single change effort. Rather, it required the pharmaceutical

industry to manage cycles of continuous change over the course of years.

The experience of the drug companies illustrates the kind of complex and demand-

ing environment that many companies face. The problem for managers confronting

such situations is that the conventional models of organizational change tend to be too

simplistic. Most of them present an unrealistic image of change as an episodic phe-

nomenon in which corporate leaders develop and implement elaborate change pro-

grams on an occasional basis in response to specific, isolated environmental shocks. Of

course, that type of change does occur, but more often the corporate environment is

characterized by change that is open-ended, fluid and less closely

tied to specific shocks — a continuous process rather than a clearly

delineated episode. Thus, today’s managers need a fuller under-

standing of continuous change — how it works and how it doesn’t.

Based on 15 years of studying and observing change in a wide range

of organizations, we have developed a framework for understanding

the underlying structure of continuous change.2 Core to our per-

spective is the idea that continuous change occurs in cycles, not in

the linear programs associated with planned-change projects, and

not in random or chaotic flows. Our research suggests that real, last-

ing change occurs only when it cycles through four distinct phases,

each requiring certain resources and specific individuals. (See “The

Cycle of Continuous Change,” p. 60.) An understanding of those

Managing change does

not mean dealing with

chaos. In fact, continuous

change is a predictable

cycle with four phases,

each requiring certain

resources and a specific

type of champion.

Thomas B. Lawrence,

Bruno Dyck, Sally Maitlis

and Michael K. Mauws

SUMMER 2006 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 59Illustration: © Mark Weber/images.com

Thomas B. Lawrence is the Weyerhaeuser Professor of Change Manage-ment and director of the CMA Centre for Strategic Change and PerformanceMeasurement at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.Bruno Dyck is a professor of organization theory with the I. H. AsperSchool of Business at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba.Sally Maitlis is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at theSauder School of Business, University of British Columbia in Vancouver,British Columbia. Michael K. Mauws is an associate professor of businesspolicy and strategy at the School of Business, Athabasca University inAthabasca, Alberta. They can be reached at [email protected],[email protected], [email protected] [email protected].

T

60 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER 2006

phases can help managers transform their companies into organ-

izations that experience change not as a tumultuous, anxiety-

inducing event but as part of an everyday routine. (See “Key

Lessons for Managing Continuous Change.”)

Phase 1: Using Influence to Sell Ideas Change begins with an idea — an insight, intuition or belief that

motivates someone to question the way things are done. But in

order for an idea to initiate processes of change, it needs to be

articulated and presented in ways that influence people. The

change agent in phase 1 must therefore be an evangelist — liter-

ally the bringer of good news — who sells the idea to other key

organizational members. To be successful across diverse stake-

holder groups, the evangelist needs a wide repertoire of influence

strategies. In some cases, the idea may simply need to be taken to

the right people and presented in a straightforward manner.

Many ideas, however, require more adept handling. Evangelists

may need to reframe an idea in dramatically different ways for

different audiences; to attach the idea to other ideas or plans that

are already accepted; to enroll well-respected organizational

members to act as spokespersons for the idea; to demonstrate the

concrete economic benefits of adopting the idea; to show others

how the idea might help advance their own careers. In other

words, the evangelist must be fluent in the art of persuasion.

Consider the case of Tim Smith, CEO of a major British sym-

phony orchestra, BSO. (Note: The names of the CEO and the two

orchestras in this example have been changed to preserve their

confidentiality.) While most of his peers argued vociferously for

more government funding of Britain’s orchestras, Smith’s view was

heretical: He felt that the country had too many orchestras. “There

are 16; I think there should be eight,” he said.“You need to be ruth-

less . . . because then the [available] money would work.”3

Obviously, Smith’s ideas were going to be a tough sell to many

constituencies, so he decided to start the process at home by call-

ing for the merger of his own orchestra with another, ASO, in the

same region to create a superorchestra. After first discussing his

proposal with the BSO overseers, Smith met with a variety of ASO

stakeholders, including the board and key management figures, to

argue that the merger would allow the continuation of the ASO

brand while attracting new sources of government funding. He

then contacted representatives of the Association of British

Orchestras, or ABO, the national advocacy body for professional

orchestras in Britain, to defend his proposal as the only viable

long-term solution for the two organizations and their musicians.

In early discussions with musicians and his own management

team, Smith talked only in general terms. He did not address issues

of the superorchestra’s size or the number of positions that would

be cut in the process because he first wanted to sow the seeds of his

idea. His tactic worked. In the weeks that followed, BSO junior

managers began themselves to mention the superorchestra as a

possible solution to the organization’s financial problems.

Although some saw it as a threat, others talked in Smith’s words,

suggesting it was the only secure future for the BSO.

In the coming months, Smith raised his proposal with senior

figures in the city council and with the Arts Council of England,

the country’s main funding body for the arts. He was careful,

though, not to push the idea too hard. First, he wanted to obtain

people’s buy-in by gradually getting them involved. So he formed

an independent working group, with the goal of including business

executives as well as those in the music industry, who would work

with number crunchers, visionaries and marketing professionals to

investigate the costs and consequences of various options.

For evangelists like Smith to be effective, three conditions

must be met. First, they need to be aware of, and have access to,

the informal networks necessary to sell their ideas. Therefore, man-

agers who want their people to act as evangelists must regularly

connect them to other groups and individuals across organiza-

tional boundaries, both vertical and horizontal, as well as assist

the growth of informal networks. Smith had to tap into a num-

ber of formal, as well as informal, networks to spread the word of

the superorchestra and to connect key figures to one another.

That included not only engaging members of different orchestral

groups but also those in the city council and arts-funding bodies,

as well as experts from the worlds of business and music.

Second, evangelists must be adept at persuading others, so

managers will need to create opportunities for employees to

develop those abilities. Politicking and storytelling are not the

kinds of skills typically taught in corporate training centers, but

they are crucial nonetheless. Smith was successful because he was

able to frame his proposal in various ways to appeal to different

audiences. For ASO stakeholders, for instance, he focused on sta-

Individuals

Systems

BehaviorCognition

EducatorsShapingIntuition

Influence Authority

TechnologyCulture

EvangelistsSellingIdeas

AutocratsDictatingPractices

ArchitectsEstablishing

Routines

Continuous change is a process that has four phases, each

with a specific type of champion: evangelists, autocrats,

architects and educators.

The Cycle of Continuous Change

SUMMER 2006 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 61

bility and brand maintenance. For the ABO and the Arts Council

of England, he emphasized the novel and unique role that the

superorchestra could play in Britain’s heritage of classical music.

If organizations want their employees to be able to sell their ideas

effectively, they need to provide training and development in per-

suasion skills, including storytelling and the creative use of lan-

guage, metaphors, symbols and imagery.

Third, potential evangelists need to feel the organization and

those around them support their actions. Thus, senior executives

need to model positive forms of networking, politicking and per-

suasive communication. And organizations need to reinforce the

efforts of evangelists-in-the-making by rewarding their efforts

even when their ideas don’t prove to be winners.

Phase 2: Using Authority to Change Practices A good idea often flounders because its advocates either do not

understand what is needed to translate it into action or do not

have the resources necessary to do so. To move organizational

members to action typically requires more than an evangelist’s

persuasion. Effecting collective action usually requires an auto-

crat — someone with the formal, legitimate power to tell people

what to do, how to do it and when.

The prudent use of authority becomes necessary for three rea-

sons. First, although key organizational members may have

accepted a new idea, they might harbor considerable uncertainty

or anxiety about putting it into practice: What if the idea flops, or

what if others don’t follow? At this point, someone in charge needs

to approve (or reject) the new direction, not just in theory but also

in everyday practice. In this regard, autocrats put their necks on

the line and become responsible and accountable for the change.

Second, the new idea could generate a wide range of interpreta-

tions. This is especially true with ideas that are genuinely novel or

that involve intangible concepts like innovation or collaboration.

Detailing in practical terms the new behaviors or practices that are

In order to manage the cycle of continuous change, companies need to provide the necessary conditions for each of the four types

of champions — evangelists, autocrats, architects and educators — to flourish.

Key Lessons for Managing Continuous Change

Organizational Lessons

To ensure the survival and dissemination of good ideas that can inspire employees and stakeholders andincite change processes,

• Grow and support informal, interdepartmental networks that act as the channels through which goodideas flow.

• Provide mentoring and a variety of other learning opportunities to enable rank-and-file employees todevelop skills in politicking, storytelling, bargaining and persuasion.

• Model and reward the positive politics of expanding connections to others, using influence skills and taking risks to propagate untested ideas.

To ensure that authority is exercised promptly and effectively when continuous change processes hit thepoint at which force is needed to push them forward,

• Establish and maintain stable cadres of managers who have gained the credibility to use their authorityand the practical imagination to turn ideas into behavior.

• Provide operational managers with autonomy so that they neither rush to use authority because of pres-sure from above nor delay because they lack support.

To embed change in organizational structures and systems,

• Build multidisciplinary career paths to senior management so that organizational architects understandthe corporate strategy and its components.

• Ensure that technical experts have the opportunity to reach senior levels.

To build the potential for revitalization through innovation into the change process,

• Reward for the long term so that potential educators are motivated to create learning and innovationopportunities for their staff.

• Recognize and reward reflection and experimentation even when they do not necessarily contributedirectly to the bottom line (or even directly to the change initiative).

Role

Evangelist

Autocrat

Architect

Educator


required (as well as those that need to stop) will certainly help. But

such prescriptions often need to be backstopped with authority.

Third, authority may be needed to overcome any resistance. New

ideas can be threatening, and their implementation can generate

tremendous anxiety, especially when they put employees’ existing

skills and relationships in jeopardy. The result is often resistance,

both active and passive. That is not to say that continuous change

processes incur continuous resistance; however, they almost

inevitably lead to some resistance, often at the point that ideas

need to be translated into action.

Take the example of Robert Heath, CEO of Triant Technolo-

gies Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, a leader in the develop-

ment of software used in semiconductor manufacturing. For his

first months as CEO, Heath spent his time talking with various

stakeholders, including employees and the investment commu-

nity. As he did so, he found that although Triant had significant

strengths, it was lacking in key engineering and managerial

capacities. For instance, he was shocked to find that the company

had no annual budgeting process.4 In response, he used his

authority to dictate the practice.

First, he worked directly with a few senior managers. They ini-

tially resisted, claiming that the uncertainty of their business

made budgeting impossible. Heath responded by forcing the

group to work with the information they had, for instance, to

determine a sales forecast. “If it’s very unpredictable,” he told

them, “just . . . start writing stuff down that you know.” After

about an hour and a half, the managers had come up with a

rough sales forecast of $4.2 million. They then moved on to the

payroll and other expected expenses. As it turned out, their

budget came in very close to the actual numbers. “That was really

good,” recalls Heath, “because that lent some credibility to the

process and procedure.”5 The next year, Heath continued to exer-

cise his authority to dictate additional budgeting practices, grad-

ually bringing greater sophistication to the process while also

pushing it further down the organization.

To be effective, autocrats need three things. The first is author-

ity and credibility. Although both qualtities are tied partly to an

individual’s position in the organization, they also stem from the

respect and loyalty of others. A team that does not trust its leader

can undermine the implementation of new practices by shirking

them with passive resistance. A board without respect for its CEO

can undercut his or her authority by stalling or challenging that

person at every turn. In the case of Triant, Heath was fortunate

that he had established his credibility through his work at the

company in a number of capacities over several years. It’s because

of this need for credibility that organizations need to maintain

stable cadres of line managers who can gradually establish them-

selves so that, when those individuals must fulfill the role of auto-

crat, they will have the ability to lead with authority.

The second key requirement for an autocrat to be successful is

good timing. Autocrats need to choose among competing ideas

and decide which will be adopted and when. If autocrats act too

early, they may compromise the momentum developed by evan-

gelists. It’s better to let an idea gain support as widely as possible

rather than preempting its acceptance with a sudden directive from

above. But if autocrats act too late, they might delay important

change. That means that organizations must support employees

responsible for translating ideas into action by providing them

with sufficient autonomy so that potential autocrats neither rush

(because of pressure from above) nor unduly hesitate (because

they need authorization to act). In Heath’s case, he knew he had

to establish budgeting practices early on because those processes

would become the foundation for future organizational changes.

Finally, autocrats must have “practical imagination” — the

ability to identify and provide the resources necessary to imple-

ment new ideas. Someone with practical imagination is able to

translate the abstract, metaphorical or conceptual into tangible

sets of behaviors and practices that make sense in the context of

the organization and its work. Triant’s Heath took the goal of

improved management systems and translated that into the con-

crete action of implementing budgeting practices. Employees

with practical imagination are often experienced middle and line

managers who are steeped in the day-to-day work of the organi-

zation. Companies should again ensure that they have stable

cadres of such individuals because practical imagination, like

credibility, tends to grow with a person’s tenure.

Phase 3: Embedding Change in TechnologyAutocrats can implement new practices, but making those rou-

tines stick requires more than the force of individuals. It typically

requires technology. Thus, to institutionalize change, organiza-

tions need an architect to design the systems necessary to embed

the change in corporate routines, ensuring its maintenance inde-

pendent of the shifting responsibilities and attentions of the

Autocrats must have “practical imagination” — the ability to translate the abstract into tangiblesets of behaviors and practices that make sense in the context of the organization and its work.


evangelists and autocrats. The goal is to entrench the desired

behaviors and practices so deeply that they become not only rou-

tine but taken for granted. That can be accomplished with infor-

mation, manufacturing and financial systems, as well as with the

physical work space — the floors, walls and areas that bring peo-

ple together, keep them apart and channel their movement

through the organization. In each case, technology is critical

because it can rapidly and effectively eliminate undesirable

options and facilitate collective behavior. That said, phase 3 of the

change cycle is a precarious one that needs

to happen quickly, efficiently and visibly; if

it doesn’t, enthusiasm could dissipate, frus-

trating those invested in the process.

Consider Toronto-based TD Bank

Financial Group’s acquisition of Canada

Trust Financial Services Inc. in February

2000. At the time, the deal was the largest

financial services merger in Canadian his-

tory, bringing together two companies with

1,500 branches, 44,000 employees, 10 mil-

lion customers and $256 billion in assets.

The goal was not only to gain scale but also

to draw on the best practices of each bank

to improve the newly formed organiza-

tion’s business and service model. Given its

size and ambitious aims, the merger went

surprisingly smoothly. That was largely

attributable to the way in which it was managed, not as an iso-

lated event but as part of a process of continuous change neces-

sary for the bank to achieve its goal of becoming the leading

Canadian-based financial institution in North America.

The first set of architectural decisions required the choice of

platform for the core systems. According to Fred Tomczyk, vice

chair of TD, the decision was hardly a no-brainer: Canada Trust

had the better retail banking platform, but TD had a large com-

mercial banking system. After some consideration, the TD system

was selected with certain added Canada Trust functionality. “We

[decided] to go backwards on the retail platform in order to have a

viable commercial platform,” says Tomczyk.6

A second set of systems focused on the monitoring and man-

aging of two key stakeholder groups: customers and employees.

“Because employee and customer satisfaction is initially going to

go down in a merger,” explains Tomczyk, “what you want to do is

make sure the dip is as shallow as it can be and that you come out

of it as quickly as you can.” The installed systems allowed the

bank to identify any potential problems and address them

quickly. “We were religious in our measurement of how employ-

ees were feeling,” says Tomczyk. In turn, employees were focused

on maintaining good customer service because that measure was

used to determine bonuses throughout the organization. The

uncertainty and upheaval of any merger can overwhelm both

customers and employees. The satisfaction-monitoring systems

used at TD Canada Trust helped ensure that the merger’s strate-

gic aim of building a better bank did not get lost in the noise.

To be effective, architects must have the ability to envision the

changed organization — with new and transformed spaces and

walls that ensure employees work, interact and move in the direc-

tion of the change. In doing so, architects sometimes have to

make tough decisions. In the TD Canada Trust case, Tomczyk

made the choice to abandon Canada

Trust’s advanced retail banking platform

because the TD system fit better with the

strategy of the new organization. Archi-

tects like Tomczyk typically have a breadth

of experience in the organization, that

allows them to understand the strategic

purpose of its different elements and how

everything fits together to accomplish cor-

porate goals.

Architects also need technical expertise

— the skills and knowledge to understand

exactly what can be built so that they can

translate inspiration into processes and

structures. Often this expertise is in areas

such as information systems or organiza-

tional design, but it can also be more spe-

cialized or industry specific. Tomczyk was

able to deal with the technical complexities thrown his way by the

size and scope of the TD Canada Trust merger because of his

experience in the banking and financial sector, including his

extensive background in accounting.

For organizations to develop successful architects, they will

want to encourage senior executives to build multidisciplinary

career paths. The combination of vision and expertise essential to

an architect is likely to stem from a significant tenure within the

organization, including positions spanning different depart-

ments or divisions and high enough up the corporate ladder to

gain an awareness of the overall operational and competitive

landscape. Finding someone with that kind of background will

be difficult when narrow career paths are the only way to a com-

pany’s corner offices.

Organizations should also ensure that a range of technical

experts have the opportunity to reach the senior levels of manage-

ment. That means both creating executive-level positions in tech-

nical areas, such as information technology as well as legitimating

senior promotions to those whose technical backgrounds might

not necessarily fit with the pattern of others who have made it to

the top at the organization. Companies that have traditionally

looked only to finance or marketing for their leaders, for instance,

need to broaden their scope to those with expertise in other areas.


Phase 4: Managing Culture to Fuel the Cycle of ChangeThe final phase is perhaps the most critical but, in our experience,

the most neglected — ensuring that the change process leaves a

legacy that surpasses its original objectives. Doing so requires a cul-

ture for fostering innovation that extends and elaborates the initial

ideas and practices. Although traditional change efforts often

include a cultural component, the emphasis is typically on instilling

a new set of values, such as quality, that relate to the program’s ini-

tial aims. In contrast, the cultural component of continuous change

processes is forward-looking with a focus on helping employees

gain the expertise and motivation not only to enact the change but

also to extend and elaborate it. The goal is an environment that fos-

ters innovation and strategic thinking, setting the stage for the birth

of new ideas that can then be picked up, evangelized and integrated.

Practically speaking, that involves implementing routines and prac-

tices that help establish a cycle of improvement, learning and strate-

gic adaptation that is self-perpetuating.

The key to phase 4 is fostering “strategic intuition”: insights that

connect employees’ work to the strategic direction of the company.

Strategic intuition is not some magical process. Instead, it’s a cog-

nitive one that involves the recognition of patterns that others can’t

see. Intuition typically arises from employees’ expertise in particu-

lar domains — their sophisticated understanding of markets,

processes and customers that are built on deep experience. What

makes intuition strategic is when employees can connect recog-

nized patterns with ways in which their organizations add — or

could add — value for customers.

The change agent in phase 4 is an educator, not simply a

teacher but an individual with the ability to illuminate the work

experiences of employees so that they gain expertise in ways that

foster their own strategic intuitions. Like the architect, the edu-

cator is concerned with the development of organizational sys-

tems and structures, but the focus is on creating the right

environment. It might include formal training with experiential

learning, but just as often it involves establishing an organiza-

tional setting in which employees are able to gain a mastery of

their work, are publicly acknowledged for that mastery and are

given the time and resources necessary for experimentation.

Triant’s Heath understood the role of educator. A critical part

of the change effort at his company focused on improving engi-

neering capacity and aligning it more closely to customers. Thus,

Heath promoted work experiences for engineering personnel

that would provide them with an ongoing education in the needs

of their customers and their roles in addressing those needs. For

example, instead of separating engineering from customer man-

agement (a common practice in many high-tech companies),

Heath began to integrate the two. “All our engineers visit cus-

tomers,” says Heath. “They go to Korea, they go to Japan . . . they

go to Ireland. . . . They sometimes go and install new releases.”

That practice has dramatically shaped the engineers’ under-

standing of customer problems, and it has deepened their appreci-

ation of the value of different technological solutions. For Triant,

such knowledge has enhanced the company’s ability to create new

products that exactly match customer needs. Moreover, the process

has also nurtured the engineers’ capacity to participate in Triant’s

continuous change cycle in ways they couldn’t if they had been

spending all their time in the lab or office. Triant engineers now

view themselves as key to their customers’ ability to compete in the

marketplace. The result: Engineering solutions have become cus-

tomer-focused, and engineers have become customer advocates.

The work of educators is perhaps the most overlooked. Evan-

gelists, autocrats and architects all tend to attract significant

attention as highly visible proponents of change. In contrast,

educators often depend on subtlety, leading others to work in

ways that indirectly shift their perceptions and understandings.

To accomplish that, educators need a combination of two key

skills.

First is the ability to assess the relationship between the strate-

gic importance of the changes — specifically, how the changes

will add value for customers — and the day-to-day work of front-

line employees. It was Heath’s appreciation of that relationship

that led him to realize that Triant’s engineers were going to be the

key to generating the ideas that could fuel the next cycles of inno-

vation and change.

The second critical skill is the ability to create work experi-

ences for employees that will enable them to acquire an under-

standing of the company’s strategic direction and gain the

expertise necessary to extend that direction through product,

process and organizational innovations. Heath, for instance,

understood that no amount of talk about getting customer-

focused would be as effective as having the Triant engineers on

site working with customers.

Supporting the work of educators requires a long-term out-

look on the part of senior managers. It is a critical issue for

Continuous change requires a cultural component that is forward-looking with a focus on helpingemployees gain the expertise and motivation not only to enact change but also to extend it.


organizations that are undergoing change when there is almost

always pressure to finish the process: complete the merger, final-

ize the restructuring, nail down the new marketing strategy. But

such short-term pressures should not be allowed to override the

subtle, slow work of educators, which must be evaluated and

rewarded over long-time horizons with plenty of room for exper-

imentation and false starts. In particular, companies must recog-

nize that important educator processes do not necessarily

contribute directly to the bottom line (or even directly to the

change initiative). Nevertheless, a key difference between organi-

zations that successfully manage continuous change and those

that don’t is employees who both understand why change is nec-

essary and have the ability to do the sort of double-takes required

to understand how and why current practices differ from previ-

ous ones, and why and when alternative practices might be more

appropriate. Getting employees to that point is the work of an

educator.

The Pathologies of ChangeInitiating and maintaining continuous change in an organization

requires a foundation of stability. Understanding that paradoxi-

cal statement is crucial. Put another way, managing continuous

change is not the same as managing a project or an individual

change program; it is a capacity that gets built into organizations

over the long term, allowing them to deal on an ongoing basis

with environmental shifts, new competitors and disruptive tech-

nologies. To establish such a foundation, companies must pro-

vide the necessary conditions for each of the four roles —

evangelist, autocrat, architect and educator — to flourish.

The lack of any of those important champions can easily dis-

rupt the process of continuous change. To understand this better,

note that the underlying structure of continuous change is asso-

ciated with two key balancing points: one that falls between indi-

viduals and systems as instruments of change, and the other

between cognition and behavior as the target of change efforts.

Imbalances at those points can easily lead to certain organiza-

tional pathologies. (See “The Pathologies of Change.”)

Balancing Individuals and Systems Recall that phases 1 and 2 rely on

the ability of individuals to affect the thinking and behavior of

others: Evangelists influence the beliefs of other employees, and

autocrats dictate their behaviors. In contrast, phases 3 and 4 rely

on organizational systems as the levers of change: Architects use

technological systems to institutionalize new practices, and edu-

cators employ organizational culture to shape employees’ sense of

mastery. Unfortunately, many organizations are unable to bal-

ance these two sides of the continuous change cycle, fostering

pathologies that lead to flawed outcomes.

Many companies take pride in their belief in individuals. Such

an organization will work hard to ensure that employees under-

stand their importance, providing them with the resources, train-

ing and connections needed to spark change. In that type of

environment, influential evangelists and decisive autocrats can

easily leverage the intuition and insights of others, establishing a

hotbed of creativity: New ideas for products, processes and

strategies are in the air as evangelists excite and enroll others in

their causes; new practices are regularly tried out as autocrats

direct their employees toward different ways of doing things.

But organizations that are overly reliant on individual initiative

— while failing to invest sufficiently in organizational systems —

can create serious problems. In short, individual initiative without

systemic institutionalization breeds creativity without learning.

Organizational Imbalance Change Pathology

• Overreliance on individuals- too many evangelists and autocrats- too few architects and educators

• Overreliance on systems- too many architects and educators- too few evangelists and autocrats

• Overemphasis on thinking- too many evangelists and educators- too few autocrats and architects

• Overemphasis on doing- too many autocrats and architects- too few evangelists and educators

Creativity without learning

Institutionalization without creativity

Ideas without implementation

Change without strategy

The cycle of continuous change can be disrupted by several types of imbalances, leading to certain organizational pathologies.

The Pathologies of Change


In contrast, other companies have bestowed tremendous

power to organizational systems. Automated manufacturing sys-

tems, information technologies, systematized training and social-

ization schemes, and formalized product-planning processes all

ensure that the current wisdom of the organization is embedded

in its routines and practices, and in employees’ self-understand-

ings. These companies manage phases 3 and 4 with skill. But if

those systems are not balanced by equally strong individuals,

these organizations will create the pathological condition of

institutionalization without creativity: Ideas and practices are

efficiently embedded in the organization, but they tend only to

extend (or, at best, refine) the status quo, rather than present new

opportunities for growth, development and innovation.

Balancing Doing and Thinking The second critical point of equilib-

rium is between cognition and behavior. This balance between

thinking and doing is reflected in the focus of a company’s

change efforts. Some efforts are directed at the hearts and minds

of the company — swaying employees so that they buy into new

ideas or shaping the formation of employees’ identities so that

their intuitions become consistent with the corporate strategic

direction. Including such a cognitive aspect in change processes is

critical to success, but once again balance is the key.

For many organizations, especially those that promote the

importance of corporate values and beliefs, an emphasis on cogni-

tion can sometimes lead to a neglect of behaviors and practices.

Executives and managers spend significant time ensuring that

employees understand the company’s mission and its relationship

to their own work but fail to make sure that those concepts are

translated into action. In short, a focus on thinking at the expense

of doing leads to enthusiasm for new ideas but a failure to imple-

ment them.

This balance can, of course, also tip the other way toward an

emphasis on behavioral change and a neglect of its cognitive

foundations. For every conceptually oriented organization, there

is another that has a “Just do it” attitude. These companies are

often bottom-line oriented: Managers understand that all the talk

in the world doesn’t mean a thing unless it’s translated into

action. So employees excel at rapidly adapting to customer

demands and other external shocks, as autocrats are only too

ready to dictate new behaviors and architects find ways to make

sure those behaviors stick.

Of course, those capacities can be essential for companies

operating in the age of Internet time and diverse, demanding

stakeholders, but problems arise when a company loses sight of

the importance of employees’ attitudes, beliefs, values and iden-

tities. Without a balanced emphasis on cognition, continuous

change is stunted: Instead of powerful, cumulative cycles of

change, these organizations experience adaptation without the

energy that comes from employees buying into different

approaches and perspectives and reformulating their identities in

ways that match the new direction.

THE ABILITY TO EFFECT CHANGE continuously has become an

increasingly necessary core competency. As we see it, the compa-

nies that succeed today and survive tomorrow will be those that

can radically reshape themselves with the same regular ease that

they develop and introduce new products. For these organiza-

tions, devising and disseminating new practices will be a routine

affair, as will institutionalizing and extending those practices. And

that will best be achieved by addressing each of the four phases of

continuous change. In practice, what this amounts to is a need for

companies to ensure that their ranks include evangelists, auto-

crats, architects and educators. That might involve reformed hir-

ing practices that bring such people into the organization as well

as developing organizational training and reward systems that

motivate and enable employees to fill those roles. However it hap-

pens, what’s clear is that, for change to be both formulated and

effectively implemented, all four kinds of champions must be

present. Without those individuals, companies will have difficulty

managing the continuous change necessary to stimulate innova-

tion, implement new practices, leverage creativity and institution-

alize learning on a continuing, unyielding basis.

REFERENCES

1. See S. Maguire, N. Philips and C. Hardy, “When ‘Silence = Death,’Keep Talking: Trust, Control and the Discursive Construction of Identity in the Canadian HIV/AIDS Treatment Domain,” Organization Studies 22 (March 2001): 285-310; and S. Maguire, C. Hardy and T.B.Lawrence, “Institutional Entrepreneurship in Emerging Fields:HIV/AIDS Treatment Advocacy in Canada,” Academy of ManagementJournal 47, no. 5 (2004): 657-679.

2. For more academic treatments of some of the ideas presented here,see T.B. Lawrence, M.K. Mauws, B. Dyck and R.F. Kleysen, “The Politics of Organizational Learning: Integrating Power into the 4I Framework,” Academy of Management Review 30, no. 1 (2005): 180-191; B. Dyck, F.A. Starke, G.A. Mischke and M.K. Mauws, “Learning toBuild a Car: An Empirical Investigation of Organizational Learning,” Jour-nal of Management Studies 42, no. 2 (2005): 387-416; and S. Maitlis,“The Social Processes of Organizational Sensemaking,” Academy ofManagement Journal 48, no. 1 (2005): 21-49. Of course, our work alsobuilds significantly on the work of many other scholars, especially M.Crossan, H. Lane and R. White, “An Organizational Learning Frame-work: From Intuition to Institution,” Academy of Management Review 24,no. 3 (1999): 522-537; I. Nonaka, “A Dynamic Theory of OrganizationalKnowledge Creation,” Organization Science 5, no. 1 (1994): 14-37; andS.R. Clegg, “Frameworks of Power” (London: Sage, 1989).

3. See Maitlis, “The Social Processes of Organizational Sensemaking.”

4. R. Heath, interview with authors, June 10, 2004.

5. Ibid.

6. F. Tomczyk, interview with authors, July 19, 2004.

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